My wife and I have two kids, 5 and 6. We have no family where we live and I have fortunately made enough money to where she was able to stay home with the kids. They are now in school and she’s clearly bored.
I am about halfway through a career with a pension. I work swing shift and have done everything in my power to work the least amount, and take the most time off possible. I unfortunately have unexpected and unwanted forced shifts or holdovers to which I cannot say no to. So instead of getting off at 3am I can potentially get off at 7am. If I refuse to do this I will literally lose my job.
My wife has decided to go get a retail job making minimum wage. I said that’s fine, just tell them your availability is during the kids school hours. For comparison sake one hour of overtime for me is equivalent to an eight hour shift for her. We are saving money monthly are completely fine financially. This is just so she feels more “independent” and “has her own money.” I’ll note here she has access to the bank accounts and I don’t comment on any purchase she makes.
So she gets hired and decides to tell them her availability is basically anytime I’m off and in the middle of my work week. This has created a situation where I get home at 3am, she is leaving at 6:40am, and my kids are just in the house unsupervised and watching tv until I wake up. I tell her this is not acceptable to me and it’s difficult for me to actually sleep with the stress of the unsupervised kids, and I have to work that night as well. Her response is it’s a seasonable job and “you’ll be fine.” I told her I’m about to hire a babysitter and we will just be losing money as a family.
This has basically just added unnecessary stress to my life. I also have a very important promotional interview coming up which would allow us to move and buy a nice house. It’s hard to focus on that with this added issue I need to deal with. Her thought is basically it’s a temporary seasonal thing and I just need to deal with it.
I’ll also add my wife has a college degree in education but has no desire to use it. I also don’t even enjoy my job I just keep it for my kids/family.
Her unwillingness to limit her availability and disregard for my concerns really makes me start questioning everything if I’m being honest .
TLDR: Wife is disregarding my work schedule and making things inconvenient so she can work a part time minimum wage job. Trying to discuss it with her just causes an argument.